Hi Alan, good to hear from you up here again.

>cris: It'll be fascinating to see (to you too, probably) what your turn
>toward rethought notions of performance yields.  I'll register my
>disappointment that we apparently won't be experiencing your spectacular
>voicings again as you've done them (about as far away from a "reading" as one
>could imagine), but look forward to what's next.

Thanks for that. But i probably won't be 'going away'. Quite the reverse.
I'm working on 'multimedia sentences' and expect to be very much 'in
eveidence' through short video poems and installation works. Prodded by
Keith Tuma's reference to his 'The Coming Community' in an essay for the
Cork Conference in April I've been reading Giorgio Agamben. His most recent
in translation out from Stanford 'The Man Without Content' discusses
Balzac's 'The Unknown Masterpiece' in terms which strike me as appropriate
to the business, perhaps necessary even though I am choosing to relocate
myself i relation to its more mawkish aspects, of writers sounding their
own writing:

'What happens to Frenhofer? (Balzac's central character) So long as no
other eye contemplated his masterpiece, he did not doubt his success for
one moment, but one look at the canvas through the eyes of his two
spectators is enough for him to appropriate Porbus's and Poussin's opinion:
"Nothing! Nothing! And I worked on this for ten years" (Chef D'Oeuvre
p.306) Frenhofer becomes double. He moves from the point of view of the
artist to that of the spectator, from the interested *promesse de bonheur*
to disinterested aethetics. In this transition, the integrity of his work
dissolves. For it is not only Frenhofer that becomes double, but his work
as well; just as in some combinations of geometric figures, which, if
observed for a long time, acquire a different arrangement, from which one
cannot return to the previous one except by closing one's eyes, so his work
alternately presents two sides that cannot be put back together into a
unity. The side that faces the artist is the living reality in which he
reads his promise of happiness; but the other side, which faces the
spectator, is an assemblage of lifeless elements that can only mirror
itself in the aesthetic judgment's reflection of it.' (The Man Without
Content p.11)

Sitting on the train to and from London yesterday I opened my laptop and
started to do some work on writing projects. On both occasions the person
sitting next to me certainly glanced at the writing on the screen from time
to time and I couldn't help but try to put myself somewhat in their
position. What were they seeing / reading? A couple of times as i was
tinkering away I thought about turning to them and asking them what changes
or additions and so forth they might make were they (by some force of
crcumstance of terror) in my place. But you see what i mean.

>I do have a question: a
>week or two ago (in your first longish post about the performance symposium)
>you more than once used the phrase "durational performance" as if that had a
>particular kind of meaning to you--if I understood aright.  Can you
>elucidate?  Once we go beyond some obvious definitional distinctions (i.e.,
>something visual--painting, video, whatever--as "visual performance," etc.) ,
>if we're talking about live bodies doing things in physical space, I can't
>imagine a kind of performance *other than* "durational."  Am I just being
>nit-picky here?  If so, sorry--I don't mean to put too much weight on a
>possibly casual word.  But if I'm not, I'd be interested to hear a bit more.

You know it is one of those stupid terms that acts like a shorthand. When
applied to any performance durational is as you rightly point out quite
accurate, as is site specific, time-based and ah but there we're getting
towards it. In  brit 'live art' discursive contexts 'durational' implies
that a piece of work is either for the length of the event (perhaps
day-long or throughout an evening, not structured within a clear audience
in beginning then end and audience out frame) or else extremely long.
Examples would be the works of Alistair McLennan from Northen Ireland or
Marina Abramavic (in particular the pieces she used to perform with Ulay).
Other historical examples would be Vito Acconci's 'Seed Bed' and many works
documented in 'Out of Actions'. You know the kinds of works that are
continuous through at least several hours, sometimes several days. These
works are almost always 'task-based'. Lone Twin performed a 'mapping' of
Nottingham at last year's eXPo by gridding the city into 96 squares and
spending one hour in each square in a continuous 96 hour performance during
which people were invited to page them and give them personal messages
(which square they would ba at any given time was well publicised and they
were conspicuous by means of carrying a 20 foot steel ladder with them
everywhere  -  caused hilarious trouble with the police in one suburb deep
in the night once) which they would climb to the top of the ladder and call
or sing into the sky through a megaphone.

Anyway I digress. Durational therefore signals intent that emphasis in the
piece is being placed onto its durational qualities, how the long length of
time affects what happens  -  there is usually an element of tiredness
involved.

I understand you're reaction to the term. 'Live art' is equally problematic
and has generated many a quip over "as opposed to what  -  'dead art'"
etcera. One of those slippery and perhaps culturally specific terms that
has currency in these isles at this time. Can't say much more nor much
fairer than that.

love and love
cris






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